As Hitler's Third Reich prepared for Blitzkrieg in 1939, the lessons of the first world war were not lost on Elder Ellis Rasmussen and other LDS missionaries then serving in Germany.
Rasmussen knew from mission leaders that during World War I, LDS missionaries were incarcerated.World War I also taught the Netherlands some lessons. In 1914, too many refugees flooded the country. So in 1939, the Netherlands closed its borders to those trying to escape Germany, including missionaries.
Those lessons crossed paths on a blustery Aug. 26, 1939. Rasmussen and five other missionaries, trying to escape Germany, traveled from Weimar, in the modern German Democratic Republic (East Germany), to the Dutch border.
Unfortunately for the missionaries, the Dutch were allowing in only people who had passage out of the country. For about 24 hours, Rasmussen and his companions waited just inside Germany, knowing that the next day German army officers would begin to control all rail traffic in the country to facilitate troop movements.
German armies were moving east toward Poland. The war was about to begin. Germany invaded Poland 50 years ago today.
In all, about 700 missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were evacuated from Europe in the dawning hours of World War II with few serious incidents, according to a master's thesis by BYU religion instructor David Boone. Many called it a great miracle. Others called it a fulfillment of prophecy, Boone said.
While uneventfully crossing Germany, Rasmussen's party splurged with an omelet breakfast. They listened to German women speak quietly and proudly about the men who just left them. The hopes and fears of German citizens echoed in their ears. "We saw but pathos in the tranquil country scenes we traversed," he wrote.
While waiting just inside Germany in Bentheim, Rasmussen and his companions stayed in a hotel not knowing where to go or what to do. Their money quickly disappeared. Elders were only allowed to take 10 German marks (roughly $2.50 then) out of the country.
But when they were preparing to leave the hotel the next day, Elder Robert Kest walked in with tickets to Denmark. Kest had crossed from Holland without a visa, smuggled the tickets and then returned to the train station with literally no time to spare.
As German guards searched Kest on his way into Germany, he placed the smuggled tickets on a table in front of him. No one seemed to notice. They took all of his other belongings. When the Germans finished searching him, he picked up the tickets again, apparently unobserved, and walked out. He explained his lack of visa by acting like a stupid American who spoke no German or Dutch, Kest wrote in 1943.
Rasmussen, now an emeritus professor of religion at BYU and former dean of religious studies, and his five companions then boarded a train headed north.
Three times on their trip they found trains when they were told there probably would be none. Once, some of the group boarded a train without appropriate tickets. Once they opted to wait for another train, when there was supposedly none, rather than risking catching a ferry at a town they knew still had train service.
They spent one night in the train station and managed to cross into Denmark on Aug. 28.
From Denmark, Elder Smith and other church leaders found a ship bound for the United States. He completed his missionary service in South Carolina and Georgia.